Tag: police brutality
Palestinian Liberation and Police Abolition Go Hand In Hand
The severe repression of the recent encampment protests proves that these struggles are inexorably linked.
Pro-Palestinian protesters face off with the police in a demonstration at the University of California–Los Angeles on May 23, 2024.
(Qian Weizhong / VCG via Getty Images)
Since the student movement for Palestinian liberation gained momentum this spring, universities and politicians have unleashed brutal police forces on campuses across the country. At the City College of New York, cops tasered and pepper-sprayed demonstrators,
The Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is.
The narrative of protesters endangering Jewish students has been used to justify police repression. But at the Columbia encampment, I saw a commitment to confronting antisemitism.
A view of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University in New York City on April 23, 2024.
(Selcuk Acar / Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Wednesday morning, all that was left of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia University’s lawn was a patchwork of green and yellowed grasses, marking where tents
The Underground Historians of China
Late one night in 1958, a man named Liu Bingshu whispered to his wife, the mother of their four young children, “There is no escape. I could be taken away … If I can come back, we will see each other again.” Liu would soon be the victim of a massive policy change by the Communist leader of China, Mao Zedong. Just a year earlier, Mao had famously demanded that “a hundred flowers bloom,” actively inviting criticism and
How Georgia Indicted a Movement
On September 5, Georgia effectively indicted an entire social movement, and on the following day, five organizers and members of the clergy chained themselves to construction equipment. In the name of a “people’s injunction,” they handed out bright orange notices, telling the workers to stop building the Atlanta police training facility, better known as Cop City. Police arrested the protesters, who now face criminal charges. The activists’ determination, courage, and wit are hallmarks of the movement to stop Cop City … Read more
A Haunting Portrait of Newark’s Bloody Summer of Unrest
After Lee’s Newark assignment, Life sent him to cover the unrest in Detroit in July, 1967, and the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. “I was like their golden boy,” Lee later remarked. Eventually, he grew weary of documenting so much national trauma. He went on to photograph the scene around Andy Warhol’s Factory and worked briefly as an on-set photographer for Federico Fellini and Arthur Penn. In the early seventies, he was sent by Esquire to Los
Meet the Ex-Prosecutor Behind the Legal Effort to Stop Atlanta’s “Cop City”
Police Are Spreading Authoritarianism Under the Guise of Counterterrorism
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.
Chicago’s Election Will Shape the Future of Public Safety in America
Chicago’s per capita police spending has, officially, more than tripled since 1964. The city now employs about twice as many police officers per capita as the national average—markedly more than any other large city except Washington, D.C. The Chicago Police Department has attempted nearly every possible
Predatory Policing Has Become a National Crisis
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.
What Is Up With the Weight-Loss Industry?
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
In “The Weight-Loss-Drug Revolution Is a Miracle—And a Menace,” my colleague Derek Thompson grappled with the rise of the drug Ozempic, the latest in a long line of much-hyped ways to lose weight and perhaps the